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Town folk all over Malawi cannot do without a produce market because this is where all the food comes from. All the fruits, vegetables and even maize flour is bought from the market.
For the main commercial city of Blantyre, the most reliable market is Limbe Market because this is where people find not only food items, but even hardware products and car accessories.
However, this important complex has serious sanitation problems. Clean water seems a luxury and the place is a breeding ground for cholera. Maybe this explains the existence of tents where patients suffering from cholera are frequently seen at Limbe Dispensary, just 500 metres away from the market.
Going around the market, one sees vendors washing all sorts of vegetables, fruits fish and other commodities. You also see other vendors sprinkling water on the goods so that they look fresh to attract buyers. And if you are observant, you would not miss the dirty water that is used in carrying out this.
The water taps at the market are perpetually dry and water is a precious commodity.
People are seen carrying water buckets on their heads right in the middle of town after drawing it from leaking pipes with dirty surroundings. When it rains, both men and women draw the water from every puddle they find and this is the same water that is used to clean selling benches and wash the produce in the market.
This situation is not because there is shortage of water in the city but because the city assembly does not regard the availability of water as a necessity.
In the last week of June, all water supply to Blantyre City Assembly establishments including the markets was cut off by the utility company after the assembly failed to honour outstanding bills.
But during the same week, top bosses of the assembly, led by deputy mayor Isaac Nyakamera, went for an outing at a lakeshore resort in Mangochi together with 62 street vendors and spent K880,000 ($8,073) excluding fuel expenses.
A councillor for the assembly confided in The Nation that this is not the first time the assembly had lavishly spent on celebrations because a year ago, the assembly invited the vendors to the lake and spent almost K1.2 million.
“The vendors were also treated to a luncheon at a Blantyre hotel where more money was spent and allowances given, all this to entice the traders to go into a flea market which they are refusing to move to from the streets where they operate from. Despite all this money being spent, the vendors have refused to move,” said the councillor.
And despite spending all that much on them, the vendors continue to trade on the streets, they litter the pavements with food and all kinds of dirt and these decompose and flies can be seen everywhere.
The vendors also make up for the great number of men who are seen urinating anyhow in the streets.
Just close to Wenela Bus Depot, around the Clock Tower Area vendors who ply their trade on and around the depot are seen relieving themselves all around.
The Clock Tower area, one of the landmarks of Blantyre, has been turned into a urinal. One cannot believe that this is where, during the autocratic days of former president Kamuzu Banda, scores of school children were lining up around the tower to clap hands, chant and sing songs of praise for the former president on his numerous local trips or on his way to Chileka Airport to fly out of the country.
Even in these democratic days, the place wears beautiful colours and electronic decorations every time there is a major event in the country be it Christmas or a big international conferences. But this beautiful and important site is being invaded by a terrible urine stench which keeps on increasing each passing day.
It is therefore no small wonder that the city experiences perennial cholera problems because good sanitation is not a priority.
Just 2km away from the Clock Tower, the densely populated township of Mbayani is another health hazard.
Women and children are seen washing and drawing water from a dirty stream that runs across the area and up the stream, people throw all kinds of rubbish into the river while even more men are seen urinating in it.
A Mbayani resident Grace Kambala said cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea and bilharzia are not rare ailments due to the sanitation problems.
“We don’t have running water as such we use the stream to wash and drink. Unfortunately, other people use the same stream as their toilet because the area is so densely populated and there is no space for most people to build pit latrines,” said Kambala.
In 2002 alone, 1,000 people died of cholera and in 2003, 46 deaths were recorded. Over 33,000 cases were recorded in 2000 alone but the figure came down to 3,000 which is still a big figure for a population of 11 million.
The Ministry of Health in conjunction with Unicef came up with a 2003,04 cholera campaign at the beginning of the rainy season in November, 2003 and the campaign challenged Malawians to observe basic personal hygiene.
Former health minister Yusuf Mwawa said at the launch of the campaign that cholera is not a disease which should be giving the nation sleepless nights because “it can easily be prevented by good personal hygiene like washing hands before and after eating, having latrines and using them and boiling drinking water”.
But according to Kambala, for people of Blantyre, the battle cannot be won by the ordinary folks alone.
“We need the help of the city assembly to improve sanitation otherwise more people will keep on dying,” said Kambala.
The assembly refused to comment on the situation but Director of Leisure, Culture and Environment for Blantyre City Robert Kawiya is on record as having decried the tendency of urinating in the streets.
“Urinating all over the place has a very bad effect on the environment because urine doesn’t decompose fast and its effects are terrible,” said Kawiya.
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